1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus where a developed image is formed on an image carrier, transferred from the image carrier, and fixed onto a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses such as predominantly a printer and a copying machine are widely prevailed in recent years, and therefore, there become widely available techniques relating to various elements constituting such an image forming apparatus. In a type adopting an electrophotographic system among various types of image forming apparatuses, an image carrier is electrically charged by the use of a charger, and then, a printing pattern is usually formed by forming an electrostatic latent image different in potential from the surroundings on the charged image carrier. The electrostatic latent image such formed as described above is developed with a developer agent containing a toner therein, and transferred onto a recording medium.
Since a high voltage is applied to the charger which conducts the electric charging, substance such as ozone or nitrogen oxide is secondarily produced from air around the charger with the application of the high voltage in many cases. If an unnecessary substance such as a discharged product adheres onto the image carrier, the charging performance of the image carrier is liable to be degraded. A marked degradation of the charging performance blurs an image formed on the recording medium, thereby causing the deterioration of a quality of an image (so-called image blurring).